Ben Shapiro is full of shit and science denial is worse than you think.

Ben Shapiro is full of shit and Right Wing science denial is worse than you think.

Conservative columnist and pundit Ben Shapiro recently wrote about his experiences speaking at Otay Ranch High School in San Diego, having been invited to speak by a local chapter of Young America’s Foundation. According to Shapiro, the Dean of the school interrupted his talk as he broached the issue of long term poverty in America, “focus[ing] on the moral and practical foolishness of a philosophy that prizes fairness of outcome over equality of opportunity.” The Dean suggested that it was his duty to “protect” his students, and Shapiro replied by asking whether it was the Dean’s responsibility to “protect the emotions of students rather than allowing them to hear facts and differing points of view.”

Let me first distinguish between Shapiro’s “facts and differing points of view”. It is true that there has been an increase in stymieing different points of view especially in institutions of higher education in the US in recent years (George Will, Ann Coulter, Bill Maher). While it is true that administrators at these institutions are charged with protecting their students, providing safe places to learn, this should not, indeed, cannot mandate silencing dissent. A safe place should also be a safe place to be challenged (there may be limits, but that is a different point). However, a Dean might reasonably protect students from demonstrable bullshit presented as a different point of view. Specifically, the bullshit in question is Shapiro’s grossly uninformed suggestion that “The reason people are permanently poor in the United States, isn’t because they don’t have money, it’s because they suck with money… That’s not even controversial. If you’re permanently poor [in America] for your entire life, you’re not great with money by definition…” Shapiro seems to see this as the common-sense approach to economics and poverty, and he is, perhaps, correct to suggest that it is not controversial, if what he means by this is that the average American does not question it. The problem is that they should: it is demonstrably myopic at best and completely false at worst. 

The Definition of Poverty:

The definition of poverty is an important question, indeed, the first question a sociologist studying poverty must address (like the question of demarcation in the philosophy of science). One may distinguish between poverty thresholds and poverty guidelines on the one hand, or absolute and relative poverty, on the other. One might use household income to household members as a metric, but one might also use standard of living and access to necessities on the other. I know of no research that defines poverty as “sucking with money”. The definition is important, and the reason that no one defines poverty this way is obvious: you can be poor without “sucking with money”. For example, children can be poor, but are generally not in a position to suck with money.

Children are an important aspect of the study of poverty, especially severe and persistent poverty. Childhood poverty is a problem in the US. And the problem of childhood poverty leads to two interesting observations regarding the factors leading to poverty. Why are children poor? The obvious answer is because their parents are poor. Family conditions are an extremely important variable in discussing poverty. However, those who are born into severe poverty tend to become poor adults. In other words, family conditions can create poor children, who, in turn, become poor adults. 

But there are other factors that contribute to poverty.

Race:  “In 2010, 27.4 percent of blacks and 26.6 percent of Hispanics were poor, compared to 9.9 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 12.1 percent of Asians” (source).

Immigration status: “In 2010, 19.9 percent of foreign-born residents lived in poverty, compared to 14.4 percent of residents born in the United States. Foreign-born, non-citizens had an even higher incidence of poverty, at a rate of 26.7 percent” (source).

Health: “In 2012, the poverty rate for Americans aged 18 to 64 living with a disability was 28.4% (4.3 million) compared to 12.5% (22 million) of Americans aged 18 to 64 who did not have disability” (source).

And, of course, Education: “Without a college degree, 45 percent of the children from families in the bottom fifth of income will themselves be mired in the bottom fifth as adults. By contrast, with a college degree, adult children cut their odds of staying in the bottom fifth all the way down to 16 percent from 45 percent” (source).

Shapiro seems to have taken pride in having been silenced by the liberal forces of American education. He greets the boos of the crowd as establishing his conservative bona fides. But that is because he believes that the crowd is objecting to his inconvenient truth, with emphasis on the “inconvenient”. The objections (I’d think) rather were to the truth of his claim, which is easily falsifiable by anyone with an internet connection. And this brings me to the deeper observation. Denial of social science is an under-appreciated form of science denial. 

It is not unusual to read reports of conservatives in the US denying climate change, evolution or the Big Bang. One Republican presidential candidate even wonders where gravity comes from. Such denials are troubling for a number of reasons, some of them merely academic, others more practical. This is more obvious in the case of climate denial. However, advances have been made in many disciplines, including biology and psychology, from the introduction of the evolutionary way of thinking. But the trend of social-science denial among conservatives is just as problematic, if not more so (perhaps concomitant with the new “fact-free” politicking). Denial of inequality between genders, between races, between language groups, even the “common sense” view that gender is determined solely by chromosomes or genitalia, are all consequences of this sort of science denial. 

One might have little concern over whether a politician or a pundit denies the Big Bang--after all, what are the odds that that dis-belief will affect wide reaching legislation or policy? But the denial of sociology, for example, is extremely irresponsible in a politician (or pundit) who should be able to understand people.

I applaud Shapiro for trying to dialogue (it may be generous to call it that) with those who disagree with him. Nevertheless, those who disagree with him (on this point, at least) do so because he is full of shit.